"Breakfast Sandwich!" © 2008 John Verive, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
Hello, my darlings!
Today I come to you once again with a story involving an owner driver. And to think a few days ago I had no idea what that even meant! As it turns out, the one lad who comes in quite often – and always has an all-day breakfast sandwich and a cappuccino – has that sort of arrangement with his parent company himself.
Usually, the cafe is too busy around the time Barry comes in, so I never really get the chance to talk to him. Other times, he is delivering a package, and has to scoot as soon as he gets my signature. Today, however, it was surprisingly quiet around mid-morning, so I went over to where Barry was having his usual meal and sat down with him. We started talking, and after a while he mentioned being an owner driver. I told him a gentleman had come in the other day who was one as well, and explained the concept to me, but that I was still a little fuzzy on specifics. Fortunately, he was more than happy to not only explain his job to me, but also to detail some of his misadventures.
Now, a haulage company, like any other business, has to run like a well-oiled machine. When a package is sent out, owner, driver, and customer service people have to be on the same page for the operation to run smoothly. Being an owner driver complicates things a tad, seeing as how you are linked to the company, but not exactly an employee. This means, should there be something wrong with the delivery, it is still your head on the stake. You may not get fired (you are, after all, your own boss), but you may lose the company's business – which, for an owner, is just as grievous as losing one's job.
Barry has confessed to me that he has been in his fair share of mix-ups, and while some of them were the fault of the driver, others were definitely the fault of the customer. Barry told me about how people give out the wrong house number, or forget to mention it, or sometimes give the wrong street name – accidentally saying you live on Holly Street instead of Holly Lane or Holly Avenue, when both exist in the same town, can cause a huge problem!
In the end, however, things have always turned out all right for my friend so far. I hope they continue to, because a strapping lad with a steady self-employed job would be the perfect match for my niece, and I've been thinking about getting her and Barry together sometime...tee hee!
Gertie xxx